


Relinquishing the Heart’s Yearnings

by Beewachan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 1 arctic monkeys reference w a word changed lmao, Angst, M/M, i guess, i saw a devastating lack of osashira so im posting this, it starts off slow sry, post breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beewachan/pseuds/Beewachan
Summary: “Wait.”“What?” Shirabu’s fingers gripped the doorknob.“Hang with me?”“I think I’d rather swallow vomit; thanks for the offer, though.”OrKenjirou is at Yahaba’s birthday celebration, and he runs into someone he doesn’t want to.





	Relinquishing the Heart’s Yearnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crocustongues](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/gifts).



> Sup ladies and gents I tried to proofread but im half dead so sorry if this is shit lol

Shirabu arrived, and he knew instantly that he was going to spend the entire time wishing that he were anywhere but here. Fucking Yahaba and his stupid “month late, so I can invite my friends from across the country that I’ve only actually hung out with once” eighteenth birthday party.

He saw Yahaba walking his way and gave him one of those superbly awkward hugs that they gave while hoping nobody thought they were a thing just because they were both gay. Shirabu handed him the present bag. “Happy birthday, loser.”

“Thanks, asshole,” Yahaba winked and gestured to the empty entrance room. “You’re not planning to stay in here the entire time, right?”

Shirabu could feel the floor vibrating underneath him. He was about to shift his heels and tell Yahaba that no, he planned on leaving immediately, but he stopped himself because that’d be rude since Yahaba put in so much effort to hold this stupid party, and Shirabu might have spent a good twenty hours helping him plan it.

Yahaba, as if he could read Shirabu’s mind, said, “You aren’t leaving. You literally sent out all of the invitations; there has to be at least one person you know you like here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, buddy,” Shirabu said, and he really didn’t mean it because he did know that Akaashi was coming, but Akaashi would probably spend the entire time with his boyfriend, anyway.

“What about Ennoshita?”

“I feel like he’s internally plotting my murder whenever I talk to him, and he looks at me with those cold, dead eyes and smiles.”

“Whatever. Go be an introvert in the rooms with people,” Yahaba says as he pushed Shirabu into the kitchen, forcing an inevitable collision, with Aone of all people. And when there was Aone, there was Futakuchi. “Shirabu!” Futakuchi shoved Aone aside and pulled Shirabu into a hug, “I haven’t seen you since that time you told me to eat shit!”

“You have to be more specific than that,” Shirabu said with a raise of the eyebrows.

“Yeah, now that I think about it, you’ve told me that every time we’ve rain into each other.” Futakuchi said with a grin that made Shirabu utter their “always.”

“Eat shit.”

“I love you.”

“I love me, too.”

Being the cheeky fellow he was, Futakuchi blew a kiss at Shirabu, told him he’d love to chat a bit more, but he had to go, and he left. Shirabu took a good five slices of pizza from one of ten boxes that Yahaba ordered because he had invited and received confirmation from probably seventy people.

He sat down against the wall, shoving food down his throat, feeling the wall shake against his back, occasionally saying, “Hi,” and commencing small talk with a few fellow partygoers, later taking in a shot or two. But when he checked his watch, only an hour and a half had passed, and he had to stay for the afterparty and clean up because he promised, but Yahaba wouldn’t notice if he disappeared until then.

So Shirabu disappeared, sort of. He walked upstairs, knocked on one of the bedrooms to make sure there wasn’t a couple inside, and when he heard nothing, he hoped it wasn’t just because the bass was ground-shakingly loud and opened the door.

Of course, something worse than a couple fist-deep inside of each other was in the room. One, lone human being who happened to share carbon-copied DNA with another human being that was gone, and for the first time, Shirabu wished that other twin was there because it would’ve made this situation a whole lot less awkward.

Unfortunately for Shirabu, he wasn’t there, so Shirabu had to stand there and look at Miya Osamu in the eyes and wish he was dead because Osamu was as gorgeous as ever, and Shirabu was as done with life as ever, and things just weren’t working out for him, alright?

Osamu wordlessly waved a limp hand while sitting at the edge of the bed. Shirabu simply stared at him, and Osamu leaned back against the bed, laying half of his body down.

Out of the corner of his eye, Osamu saw that Shirabu was going to shut the door and probably run away, so he said, “Wait.”

“What?” Shirabu’s fingers gripped the doorknob.

“Hang with me?”

“I think I’d rather swallow vomit; thanks for the offer, though.” Shirabu spun on his heel, but Osamu uttered that stupid word that always made Shirabu weak.

“Please.”

Shirabu grimaced when he felt himself turning back around.

“Okay,” he said approached Osamu and sat as far away from him as possible. “Where’s your brother?”

“Probably with Yahaba. I mean, he’s the reason we came all this way.”

“‘We’? Since when are you and Yahaba friends?”

“Since a little before we dated,” Osamu said casually. Dated, in the _past_ tense. Because Shirabu and Osamu weren’t dating anymore. They weren’t boyfriends anymore.

“Oh,” Shirabu said dumbly, mentally smacking himself for even thinking about it and mentally smacking himself for forgetting that Osamu was on the invite list.

“I kind of miss it.”

“I don’t,” Shirabu blurted a lie, assuming that Osamu was talking about their past, five-month, ridiculous relationship.

“Rude. You could have at least lied to me,” Osamu sighed, not realizing the irony in his words.

“Sorry.” Shirabu stared at the wall, and Osamu stared at the ceiling.

It was awkward when they didn’t talk to each other for at least ten minutes. Well, it was awkward even when they talked, and it was even more awkward when Osamu said, “You never gave me a reason, Kenjirou.”

Kenjirou froze. His shoulders stiffened; his jaw locked. Why did Osamu have to come out and just say things like that so easily?

“I think about it a lot, you know,” Osamu continued, and Kenjirou wanted so badly to run away, literally, to dash out the door and down the stairs and maybe all the way to Tokyo; he didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of there.

“And sometimes I think I’m over you, and I think that maybe there’ll be a day that I don’t wonder what I did wrong, but it hasn’t seemed to come yet,” Osamu continued, thinking out loud. “Sometimes my finger hovers of the your contact when I go to make a call, but I never press down, and sometimes I wish I did, but you probably wouldn’t answer, anyway.”

“I wasn’t ready for a relationship — a long distance one, I mean,” Kenjirou said, quiet, low, still not looking in Osamu’s direction.

“You could have told me that, I don’t know, three months ago,” Osamu sighed, but he didn’t sound angry, and he didn’t quite sound upset. Maybe disappointed was the word.

“I didn’t know how.”

“That’s wonderful,” Osamu said in monotone sarcasm.

Kenjirou made an uncomfortable, inaudible gulp and cringed at this whole situation. He considered pulling his phone out and texting Yahaba for an SOS, but Yahaba would probably be busy.

Osamu sat up and turned to Kenjirou, who still sat on the edge, looking at the dark wall. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said all that,” he said, and it was only half of the truth because he knew why he said at least _some_ of it.

 

Not more than an hour of awkward silences and small talk later, the two were kicked out of the room by Yahaba and Kyoutani, so they were left with only one option. It was sitting against the wall (all other seating was taken), drink in hand, being antisocial. Together.

They watched and laughed as some kid they couldn’t recognize, probably from a Tokyo prefecture volleyball team, lay down across the floor in front of them and passed out.

“How high do you think he is?” Kenjirou asked, and Osamu somehow heard him over the exceedingly loud trap music.

“As high as I wish I was,” Osamu said, taking another a sip from his cup.

And they talked. About life, the meaning of it and such; what else do teenagers have to do with their time? About volleyball; that was a relatively safe topic. About how much they love dragging Atsumu; he kind of deserved it sometimes.

They avoided talking about love, or like, or romantic relationships, or hand-holding and all that good stuff.

“Did you bring a bathing suit?” Osamu asked. It was pool party, after all.

“I had zero intention of going into that germ-infested bath when I came here, and I still do, so no,” Kenjirou may belabored the point in a seven-second rant, but those rants were part of the many things that Osamu loved about him.

“Kenjirou.” Osamu had to lean in close enough for Kenjirou to feel his breath just to make sure he could hear him.

“Yeah?”

“Is Akaashi dating ‘Tsumu?”

“Um, shouldn’t you know the answer to that?”

Osamu frowned. “He won’t tell me.”

“I mean, I don’t know if they’re dating, or whatever, but they’re not friends,” Kenjirou said, and it was kind of like he and Osamu were friends again, or boyfriends, just talking about things that really didn’t matter.

“Let’s go into the garden.”

“Don’t leave your drink.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Osamu downed the rest of it and grabbed Kenjirou’s wrist before pulling him along, through the back door, into the poolside, massive, maze-like garden until they were lost between what looked like rose bushes.

“Why are we here?”

“Because the music is a little quieter out here, and nobody likes going in gardens when they can’t see because it’s dark outside, so we’re the only ones here, and it’s more private.”

“Why do we need privacy?” Kenjirou said, but he didn’t yank his hand away, and he didn’t run off when Osamu inched a little closer.

“I like being alone with you.”

“Oh.”

Osamu rested the palm of his hand on Kenjirou’s cheek, but he didn’t dare lean closer. It was tough enough looking into Kenjirou’s eyes and not combusting.

“I like being with you, too,” Kenjirou said before adding, “I guess” and pulling Osamu’s hand away from him. “Come on,” Kenjirou ordered as he started to lead Osamu to a center-garden gazebo that he only knew the location of because of that time in second-year that Yahaba needed help making the place to ask Kyoutani out (for real that time) perfect.

Vine grew around the wooden columns, and there, the music only sounded like a muffled buzzing.  
There was a wooden bench, embellished with engravings, including two initials inside of a heart. Kenjirou would have to ask about that later.

For now, he took a seat, and Osamu sat close to him, mainly because it was a small bench, and they could barely fit on it. Osamu wanted to ask Kenjirou why they came there, but he chose not to. Kenjirou didn’t know, anyway.

Kenjirou looked at Osamu with that beautiful face that said, “Darling, I was made to break your heart,” and Osamu may as well have died because he zoned out for the whole five minutes that Kenjirou had been talking to him.

“—don’t really know what I’m trying to say here, but, uh, I really — I really don’t think we should try again, I mean, not now at least. I think that it would be great at, like, at another time.” Kenjirou was shaking with nerves.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, totally. You got what I was trying to say, right?”

“Yeah, of course.” Osamu had no idea what Kenjirou said. He heard maybe half of the last sentence.

It would’ve been great if he had heard because then he wouldn’t have lazily leaned his head on Kenjirou and seemed like such a jackass.

Of course, Kenjirou flinched once he realized that he wasn’t supposed to lean into the touch, and they weren’t supposed to even touch in the first place. Hell, they weren’t even supposed to breathe the same air. “Osamu, we aren’t doing this.”

“Doing what?” He said, suppressing a yawn and resisting the urge to shut his eyes.

“This.” Kenjirou made a frazzled gesture to Osamu’s head on his shoulder, and of course, Osamu wasn’t looking to see.

Osamu thought he understood this time, because he was actually listening now, so he sighed and supported his own weight. “Alright.”

“Sorry, I just can’t.”

“Did you even like me?” Osamu asked, and it was a stupid question because obviously Kenjirou said he liked him when they were dating, but — “Sorry. Stupid question,” he says before his thoughts upset him too much, before Kenjirou can answer. He wondered if Kenjirou feels as capsized thinking about their relationship, too, like there were a million different wounds in his chest, and they’d only heal with renewed love, or maybe they’d heal with time if he could let go.

Not receiving any response from Kenjirou, Osamu decided to take the first step in letting go. “I should probably leave,” he said, and without meeting his eyes, Kenjirou nodded.

After standing up, Osamu waved an awkward wave that Kenjirou didn’t return. He tried not to think much of it, tried to let go, but as he was walking between the rose bushes in the dark, there was a thought that he couldn’t let go of.

Was he kissing his feelings goodbye, or was he running away?

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading darling


End file.
